Thanks everyone for the entertaining threads over the last couple of days.
A lot of people jump to a lot of conclusions without any evidence. Please consider that a picture paints a thousand words, so even though the company has made past announcements with words, pictures look so much more impressive, especially a smiling Chinese billionaire.
These photos were taken on a company sanctioned, promoted and escorted trip....
https://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20180321/pdf/43slrlzdyh4dq4.pdf
The Chinese delegation, with the billionaire, would have certainly been accompanied by some lithium/geology experts from his company. I think it is safe to assume that info like these photos on twitter went back to China.
From my perspective, there has been nothing improper happening here, yet because of the interest, the company should have released a statement about the trip and posted photos of new drill cores before trading on Thursday.
Klaus has already mentioned that more drill cores will look like the past, so no new info there, certainly no results yet, so nothing much to release.
The company was queried on 2 photos, which they replied about.
IMO when trading commences next week, the price will be around in the same range it has been for a few months, until there is a material announcement of a JV or TO or possibly an offtake with some upfront payments agreed.
Everyone who has followed this stock knows there is a large lithium and tin deposit here, whether it is 500Mt or 1billion tonnes or 5billion tonnes is pretty irrelevant. Working on a NPV valuation after the first 10-15 years of mining, any larger size becomes very minor. Drilling up a resource of 400-500Mt, then converting that to higher probability adds more value than a larger inferred resource (which I think is the company strategy). Again IMO this is already built into current SP.
Everyone has to remember this has 10 bagged in a year, and those of us that bought pretty much by following ML into the stock have done extremely well, even those like me that sold too early. Anyone bagging someone for giving them an opportunity to 10 bag in a year has not thought clearly.
I've had a lot of conversations with Michael in the past. He is always passionate in what he is doing, so promoting this stock (being what Airguide is paid to do) he will do to the best of his ability. Any talk of "hypothetical" impropriety by a previous poster (assuming it has not been moderated) is just totally wrong, and any that do it can thank their lucky stars that ML has a thick hide. He also did not have to do anything here, he was already independently wealthy, so could have kicked back and done nothing forever, being bored in retirement. Doing that is just not ML. He loves the work, the challenge and helping others.
Sorry for the long post/rant, but after a wrist op yesterday, I have been greatly entertained by reading most of the posts.
Please continue the entertainment...